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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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struggle he had overcome obstacles which he had admitted to be mountains. They had fallen like paper peaks, and he was now what he called a hero. And he had not been aware of the pro- cess. He had slept and, awakening, found him- self a knight. He lay and basked in the occasional stares of his comrades. Their faces were varied in de- grees of blackness from the burned powder. Some were utterly smudged. They were reek- ing with perspiration, and their breaths came hard and wheezing. And from these soiled ex- panses they peered at him. "Hot work! Hot work!" cried the lieu- tenant deliriously. He walked up and down, restless and eager. Sometimes his voice could be heard in a wild, incomprehensible laugh. When he had a particularly profound thought upon the science of war he always unconsciously addressed himself to the youth. There was some grim rejoicing by the men. "By thunder, I bet this army'll never see another new reg'ment like us!" "You bet!" "A dog, a woman, an' a walnut tree, Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be! That's like us." "Lost a piler men, they did. If an' ol' woman swep' up th' woods she'd git a dustpanful." "Yes, an' if she'll come around ag'in in 'bout an' hour she'll git a pile more." The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud |
